Heart-Shaped Chocolatey, fudge cake

This recipe is one of my own. I decided to bake this cake for my Fiance seen as how he’s super supportive of my baking madness and he shells out a lot of money for kitchen-goods which keep me very happy. So what better way to thank him than to whip up a cake using some of his favourite flavours. I think there is a lot of science to baking and not following a recipe can make things quite complicated. It's undeniable that certain ingredients won’t work together, but ideally if you have a good base I think it’s always good to experiment with flavours and you’ll find that 9 times out of 10 it’ll turn out just right. I say this all the time, probably because it's been said to me so very often, but it really is trial and error. I often feel like George from Roald Dahl’s ‘George’s Marvellous Medicine’ when making my own recipe. There’s usually sugar in my eyes, flour all over my face, just a mess. I jot down flavours, textures, smells and most importantly how what I’m doing makes me feel at that time. Anyway, less rambling, more recipe! Here goes:

Ingredients

For the cake

4 Large Eggs

190g Butter

150g Golden Caster Sugar

40g Brown Sugar

150ml Milk (or Elmlea double cream)

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

210g Flour

30g Caramel Syrup

30g Cocoa Powder

Pinch of cinnamon

For the buttercream

140g Butter

240g Icing Sugar

15g Cocoa Powder

4 tsp Caramel Syrup

2 tsp Milk

Method

- Preheat oven at 160 degrees

-Line mould with greaseproof paper and lightly grease with butter

-Cream together syrup, butter, sugars on a high speed until you have a nice fluffy mixture  (on my notes here it says ‘Smells lovely.’ The mixture should smell like a lovely toffee, caramelly sweetness.)

-Sift in flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and cinnamon.

-Mix on a low speed adding milk/cream until you get a nice smooth mixture.

-Spoon mixture into lined mould

-Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean and cake is springy to touch.

-Leave cake to cool down a little then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Let’s crack on with the buttercream!

Method

-Beat butter until soft. Add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth.

-Add remaining sugar, cocoa and milk and beat together.

-Add in caramel syrup and beat mixture until smooth and spreadable

Once the cake has fully cooled down sandwich the cake and spread a generous amount of the buttercream.

Place on top layer and sift on some icing sugar for decoration

Voila!

I got a little bit too friendly with the icing sugar!